The former heavy blooming mill built by the Klöckner-Werke AG in 1956 was closed down for good in late March.
The Reiner Brach company that took over the rolling mill in 1985 will be liquidated.Images here.

Engineering Steel Belgium (ESB) in Seraing, Belgium announced that it will finally close down it’s steel making and casting facilities. Production is already down for two weeks.
The 70 ton electric arc furnace and the world’s largest round strand caster were built in 1972 by Cockerill to provide blooms for the Tubemeuse Pilger rolling mill across the river.
Tubemeuse was founded in 1911 under the name S.A. des Usines à Tubes de la Meuse. It was later taken over by Cockerill and went bancrupt in 1988. The mill carried on under the name New Tubemeuse until it filed bancruptcy again in 1993. The tube rolling facilities were closed down this time and the melt shop was sold to the Ellwood Steel company from Pennsylvania.
In 2009 the German GMH group bought the site.Further viewing.
Five days ago ArcelorMittal already announced the closure of it’s coking plant in Seraing within the next two weeks. The attempt to sell the site (built in 1957) to the U.S.-based Oxbow company had failed.

Despite the harsh winter weather the demolition of RG Steel’s former Mingo Junction site in Ohio continues.
Blast furnace No. 3 was already dismantled in 2004. The remaining furnace No.5 five came down recently too.
The mill was idled in 2009 and still waits for a new investor to restart the electric arc furnace and the rolling mill.

A new book showing rare aerial views of the five steel and iron mills that once shaped the Fensch valley in Lorraine, France.
The quality of the large format images done by Louis Schmidt mostly in the 1960ies is predominantly extraordinary.
There ain’t much text so you don’t need to learn French to enjoy this book.
The book is published by Serge Domini, 120 pages, ISBN: 978-2-35475-064-0.
These books are usually out of print very fast and become quite expensive after a while.

The Republic Steel company just fired up it’s new electric arc furnace in Loraine, Ohio. It replaces two blast furnaces and a BOF steel making shop idled five years ago.
Blast furnace No. 3 has a hearth diameter of 8,68 meters, furnace No 4 is 8,83 meters wide.
The BOF shop was built in 1971 and it contains two 220 ton vessels.

was rolled yesterday at the TSTG rail mill in Duisburg.
The rolling mill exists since 1894 built by the August Thyssen Hütte and sold to the Austrian Voest Alpine group in 2001.
Voest is still producing rails at it’s Donawitz works in Austria.
TSTG’s finishing stands were built in 1924 named “Fertigstrasse 1″ back then.Some images.

Demolition started at the former RG Steel plant in Warren,OH that was purchased by the Hilco company in May. This deal required to market the hot mill for three months before beginning to raze the plant. Those three months expired at the end of August.
Founded in 1912 as the Trumbull Steel Co., the mill has a long history in steel production. In 1928, the company merged with Republic Iron and Steel Co. and, two years later, was renamed Republic Steel Corp. Another merger changed its name to LTV Steel Co. when it combined with J&L Steel Corp. in 1984. The company became Warren Consolidated Industries, Inc. in 1988.
WCI Steel employed 2,600 people, and had an annual steel capacity of 1.5 million tons. In 2008 WCI was taken over by the Russian steel company Severstal.
Three years later Severstal sold the plant to RG Steel who filed bancruptcy in 2012.
The Warren Blast Furnace once was the largest worldwide.A few images from 2007.

AM Krivoy Rog, Ukraine announced to close it’s last open hearth furnace as soon as the modernization of BOF vessel No. 5 is finished. This will probably happen in late 2014.
The 700 ton tandem open hearth furnace No. 6 is the last of it’s kind at ArcelorMittal, the worlds’s largest steel producer.
Further images.